mezzoblue: Security, not Obscurity

By Tim Roberts, at 00:25:23 on 2005-05-20.

2005-05-20T00:25:23-08:00

MySQl AB provide an admin tool on their site which, if you can connect remotely, does scheduled backups amongst many other things.

The downside is connecting remotely requires attention to security. The plus side is that your back up can be geographically distant from the original and you don't have to remember to do it.

By Heath Weaver, at 06:21:43 on 2005-05-20.

2005-05-20T06:21:43-08:00

Couple more suggestions:

Down with php, try rubyonrails http://rubyonrails.com

Happiness on a keyboard.

Also, svn.
http://subversion.tigris.org/

Great for when I delete my site by accident or if I want to go back to before I saved all those changes that didn't quite turn out as planned.

By Nahan Eror, at 10:23:06 on 2005-05-20.

2005-05-20T10:23:06-08:00

Hey Dave, I second subversion! Keeping everything in version control lets you just delete those files instead of renaming them because you know you'll always have it in a previous revision. If you want it, it's just a one line command to get it back, but it's not in your working copy mucking everything up. I keep all of my personal files and code in subversion and keep the subversion DB backed up, and I never worry about deleting anything. :)

By Aristotle Pagaltzis, at 22:41:11 on 2005-05-20.

2005-05-20T22:41:11-08:00

Rather than either shuffling around or deleting, I’d move such a file out of the document root.

You might also want to consider adding the file to a compressed archive before deleting it; that keeps it around, but prevents it from doing any harm.

By Eric, at 00:03:19 on 2005-05-23.

2005-05-23T00:03:19-08:00

We're all guilty, now and then. I've done virtually the same thing, more times than I can count. In fact, I think it's about time to run another backup...

By Dan, at 04:28:11 on 2005-05-23.

2005-05-23T04:28:11-08:00

And the Ruby on Rails fanatics move in... it's almost like Star Wars II only without all the cool explosions. ;)

Keith has the right idea regarding using Cron and email to ensure timely and effective backups. It can be a pain depending on several factors, but it's well worth the time. And I'm with Dave on this one... backups, backups, backups. You'd think after 12 years in IT I'd have driven this through my thick skull when it comes to my own data. Oh, I always back up my clients data... often redundantly. My stuff??? Naaaahhh....

By Dan Wolfgang, at 07:45:27 on 2005-05-23.

2005-05-23T07:45:27-08:00

Backups are a very good thing, but doing them manually is not. You can automate a MySQL backup quite easily with something like AutoMySQLBackup: http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/, which will also e-mail it to you.

By Kevin, at 21:12:55 on 2005-05-23.

2005-05-23T21:12:55-08:00

Dave, you have made my day. First the Zen garden setting me free.. and now a good laugh. I never thought I would get into the whole blogging scheme but it appears I am in love. :P

Cheers

By Zeerus, at 06:53:10 on 2005-05-24.

2005-05-24T06:53:10-08:00

Hi Dave.

I know next to nothing about PHP, but this sounds pretty serious. I'll be redesigning my site soon, and will have it running on TextPattern. I'm using CPanel X, is there any way to have my database automatically backed up, besides using the backup feature manually?

I have seen the CRON Jobs feature, but haven't used it yet.

By Patrick Haney, at 10:56:20 on 2005-05-24.

2005-05-24T10:56:20-08:00

I know all too well how that "sunken heart" feeling is after running a script that wasn't supposed to be run.

You could always automate your SQL backup by using a cron job with mysqldump or mysqlhotcopy, that way you're not relying on memory. Personally, I never backup my databases, and it's out of laziness. I suppose this article could be my motivation.

PS. It's always good to have 2 copies of the SQL dump. One on the server, one somewhere else. I had a hard drive failure once and though I had been backing up the databases, the backups were all on that drive.